In our next release, planned for September 14th, we are delighted to be bringing you some major improvements to the way you collaborate with assignments.
We've made assignments simpler, more intuitive, and much easier to navigate. We've reduced the number of assignment statuses, we've completely redesigned the assignment user experience in your QorusDocs hub with clickable Pursuit links and Assignee filters, made it so all team members in a Pursuit can now see all assignments in a Pursuit, and much more.
This is actually only the first installment in a series of assignment improvements over the next few releases - so stay tuned for some more good stuff coming your way as we further streamline the way you collaborate.
We've also introduced another cool search improvement: you can now select text in a document and it will autofill the search box so you don't have to type in keywords search box. Plus, there's been the usual bunch of under the hood improvements and bug fixes.
Here's what you can look forward to:
1. Simplified Assignment Statuses
2. Improvements to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
3. Creating and editing assignments with the QorusDocs Add-ins for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel
4. Updated Collaboration Insights Report
5. Autofill search with selected text from the document
6. New ‘Set default for Word document Previews’ in Hub Management Settings
7. New default option for Word documents on QorusDocs Hub
8. Bug fixes and under the hood changes
1. Simplified Assignment Statuses
We've greatly simplified assignment statuses.
Before, assignments could have one of five assignment statuses: Assigned, Started, Done, Rejected, and Closed. These five statuses have now been reduced to a simple three: Assigned, Done, Rejected. And that's it.
We will still visually indicate when an assignment with an 'Assigned' status is overdue, but we'll do so differently - since we've also updated the set of icons that comes with each assignment status to improve usability.
Here's how statuses now appear in the QorusDocs Add-ins:
With these simplified statuses, when you create a new assignment, the assignment status will be 'Assigned'.
The assignment recipient(s) can then either do the work and mark it as 'Done' when they are done. Or they can reject the assignment (usually if it's not for them and should go to someone else), leave a comment the assignment will have a status of 'Rejected'.
As always, QorusDocs will keep everyone informed with email notifications.
IMPORTANTThis change is applicable not only to new assignments you create, but also to current and past assignments you might have on your QorusDocs hub. Here's how statuses have changed:
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2. Improvements to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
There are a bunch of new things here. Let's go through each one in turn:
a. The 'To Do' and 'Created' tabs have been consolidated into one view
b. How to get to your 'To-Do' list
d. Pursuits are now just one click away from the Assignment page
e. Now click on the document name in the 'Location' column to open the associated document
f. You can now more easily see and access comments in your QorusDocs Hub
g. Simplified statuses = Easier to see at a glance how assignments are progressing
h. You can now sort by almost everything, including 'Assignee'
a. The 'To Do' and 'Created' tabs have been consolidated into one view
When you go to 'Assignments' in your QorusDocs Hub using your web browser, you'll no longer see the 'To-Do' and 'Created' tabs in the top nav tabs. This has been replaced with a consolidated view, where you can see all assignments for all recipients you have permissions to see in just one view:
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
b. How to get to your 'To-Do' list
So how do you get to your 'To-do' list? Well, when you access the Assignments page, we will pre-filter assignments that have been assigned to you. The new 'Assignee' filter will automatically be set to your name:
If you'd like to see assignments assigned to coworkers, then you can click on the 'Assignee' filter and select their name from the list.
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
c. The order of the columns in the Assignment table dashboard have changed, and some column headings have been renamed.
Based on user feedback and testing, we decided to re-order the columns for a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. You'll notice that where before we started with 'Owner' in the first column, we now start with the name of the assignment instead:
Then these column headings have been renamed as follows:
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BEFORE AFTER Assignment Name Name Assigned To Assignees Document Location
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
d. Pursuits are now just one click away from the Assignment page
Previously, for assignments that were created within the context of a Pursuit, you could see the Pursuit name next to the assignment, but you couldn't click on it. Well, now you can. Clicking on the Pursuit name will take you straight to the Pursuit:
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
e. Now click on the document name in the 'Location' column to open the associated document
Previously, we listed the document name, and then next to it, we had an 'open' button. For simplicity and ease of use, we've now combined these so you can simply click on the document name to open it.
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
f. You can now more easily see and access comments in your QorusDocs Hub
Previously, comments were not readily and easily available in the QorusDocs Hub that you access with your web browser. Now, you can see next to the 'Status' column, a clickable number value. This represents the number of comments for any one assignment.
Clicking on the number of comments will open the comments screen in your QorusDocs Hub - where you can both see earlier comments as well as leave new comments of your own:
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
g. Simplified statuses = Easier to see at a glance how assignments are progressing
In your QorusDocs Hub, the simplified assignment statuses, along with the name of the assignment's status, are now part of one button. This improves scannability or the ability to see at a glance where you stand with your assignments. When you hover your mouse over an assignment status, it is more obvious that you can in fact click on the status to update it to another status (provided you have permissions to do so).
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
h. You can now sort by almost everything, including 'Assignee'
We now offer more ways for you to sort through your assignments view, including the ability to sort by 'assignee':
The only column you can't sort by is the 'Status' and 'Comments' columns. You can however filter on 'Status' at the top of the page.
Back to the list of improvements made to the QorusDocs Hub Assignment page
3. Creating and editing assignments with the QorusDocs Add-ins for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel
Previously, we would pop up a new window in the middle of your screen whenever you created a new assignment. Now, there's still a pop up window - but it comes up in your QorusDocs Add-in, leaving you free to see the document you're working on in full.
You'll probably also notice that the order of the fields in the Assignment creation form is completely different.
You can now start by selecting a user (by clicking in the 'Assigned Users' search box), then give your assignment a name, optionally add a comment and then specify when the assignment is due.
For reminder notifications, as from our next release, you will no longer need to set these manually. QorusDocs will send assignment recipients an email notification 24 hours before the assignment is due, if the assignment status is not set to 'Done' by then.
Until then, all current reminders and email notifications will still go out as scheduled and as you configured them.
4. Updated Collaboration Insights Report
Seeing as assignment statuses have changed from five statuses to three, the Collaboration Insights report for each user has also changed accordingly.
If you're not sure how to access collaboration insights, you can either access it:
- when you create an assignment and search for a user, you will see a drop down menu with a list of possible matches and a graph icon to the right of that person's name:
- or, when you edit an assignment in your QorusDocs Hub in the browser, you can also click inside the search box to bring up a list of users, and then click on the graph icon:
Here's how the Collaboration Insights report has changed:
The colors are more vibrant, and the statuses have been updated from the old to the new. To learn more about the collaboration status changes, please click here.
5. Autofill search with selected text from the document
You can now select text in any document (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or Outlook) you're working on, and QorusDocs will now pre-fill the text you select in the search box, so you don't have to type any keywords manually:
You can also select content from two rows or two columns in a table, or from two cells in Excel, and QorusDocs will pre-fill the search box with the full selection, while inserting a space in between each one in the search box:
There is a character limit to be aware of however. QorusDocs will only pre-fill the search box with the first 500 characters and you will see this alert on your screen:
This alert is intended more for information purposes than anything else. You can still go ahead with your search without having to adjust your text selection.
6. New ‘Set default for Word document Previews’ in Hub Management Settings
As you probably know, there are three different Preview modes available in QorusDocs for Word documents: the Page view, the Gallery view, and the Web view.
With this release, you can now specify whether users should land on the Page view (the good-looking preview that is more accurate but harder to select from), or the Web view (made for easy text selection and insert) whenever they click on ‘Preview’.
To do that, click on ‘Hub Management’, then on ‘Settings’, and then go to the ‘Settings’ tab:
Then select the default page of your choice and click on the ‘save setting’ button.
Click here to see an example of the Web view and Page view Preview modes.
7. New default option for Word documents on QorusDocs Hub
In your QorusDocs hub, we have changed the first action when you click on a Word search result from ‘download’ to ‘open’:
8. Bug fixes and under the hood changes
In under the hood changes and in preparation for further enhancements and new features, we migrated to a new cognitive service that will allow us to do more with our Auto Answer AI in the future.
We also introduced several stability and security improvements, and harmed several bugs along the way, including a bug that was preventing users from searching across all their site collections.
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